Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Barrister]

P.s. I've been to Whale Cove and Arviat - in January. It was very cold.

But I did buy a very nice soapstone carving from an Inuit artist, and I did walk on the frozen waters of Hudson's Bay.

[Tamas]

Latest failing of the UK government I think is that they are still not declaring clearly that people will not be allowed to mingle during Christmas. There are first signs that the fresh lockdown is having an effect, but it seems obvious to me that the traditional mega-mixing of households during Christmas is just going to throw that all out the window and result in a winter-long lockdown. People should be told now not to make plans.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think people have already made their Christmas plans; though I'm sure that Johnson will procrastinate further and then make some largely irrelevant last-minute changes which will annoy everyone.

[celedhring]

Christmas plans over here are still in flux... The Catalan government (the pandemic management has been devolved since the summer) had intimated that all outdoor celebrations (like the Epifany parades, which are a huge deal over here) would be called off and indoor meetings limited to 6 people... but since there's an election in February there's a limited amount of people they want to piss off so they have now moved to 10 people and outdoor celebrations authorized under controlled environments.

Incidentally, in other less dramatic circumstances I'd greatly enjoy the different parties in the separatist coalition government constantly undermining each other - like the more "pro-business" conservative party constantly leaking unapproved re-opening plans to the press.

At least it confirms my belief that we really aren't missing on much by not being independent.

[Sheilbh]

I think people have already made their Christmas plans; though I'm sure that Johnson will procrastinate further and then make some largely irrelevant last-minute changes which will annoy everyone.

And I think people will mix no matter what they're told.

I don't know anyone who's cancelling Christmas Day plans, but I don't think people are planning to do the usual round of family visits in the days before/after Christmas. So there might be a little less mixing than normal.

I think we'll have a January lockdown instead.

Having said all that I think it's not great for Christmas given the impact this disease has had on people's Eid and Diwali celebrations.

[Tamas]

Proud Hungarian success: as firsts in the EU, the country has received 10 samples of glorious Russian vaccine to be tested if it should be used to vaccinate the population.

[Barrister]

Proud Hungarian success: as firsts in the EU, the country has received 10 samples of glorious Russian vaccine to be tested if it should be used to vaccinate the population.

Err... 10 samples aren't enough to do much of anything...

[Grey Fox]

Had to go & get my daughter tested this morning. She did a saliva test, I didn't know that existed in Quebec/Canada.

She has no symptoms but her school class had a case declared on Wednesday, so they test everyone.

Our school system uses a bubble-class system where children within a bubble don't have to keep to social distancing or wear masks when inside their classroom.

[11B4V]

Proud Hungarian success: as firsts in the EU, the country has received 10 samples of glorious Russian vaccine to be tested if it should be used to vaccinate the population.

Russia

vaccine



No thank you.

[DGuller]

Pretty heart-warming story out of Iowa: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/business/tyson-coronavirus-lawsuit/index.html.  WTF is it with Iowans and degenerate gambling?

[11B4V]

Pretty heart-warming story out of Iowa: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/business/tyson-coronavirus-lawsuit/index.html.  WTF is it with Iowans and degenerate gambling?

MAGA 

[celedhring]

Gyms and bars/restaurants reopen next week (with occupancy limits)   

Now, as much as I'm happy to get some part of my life back, this feels quite rushed and probably caused by the February election. Numbers have been improving steadily but we far from being out of the woods.

[Sheilbh]

Latest ONS survey data and it looks like this wave has probably peaked in the UK (still slightly climbing in Scotland):


There's a few regional variations - so areas that had low infection rates like London and the East of England are seeing climbs, but most places are declining. There's also a definite school holiday effect - all adult age groups are falling but high school age kids infections are climbing quite fast - it's basically like a U.

Also saw Ed Conway from Sky do a chart on deaths in the second wave in Europe and they generally look lower than the first wave which is good. I'm not sure how much is because the infection rate is lower we're just able to see it, so various European states locked down in response, or how much is actually based on better treatment/healthcare systems having experience in what this looks like now:


Edit: I suppose the fear now is that even though we've locked down we'll see infection rates rise among people who come into contact with high schoolers. Maybe it's best, for us all, if we just enforce isolation/quarantine on all high school age kids

[Iormlund]

I don't know if "wave" is going to be a meaningful term from now on. It seems that we're going for the "walking on the edge of the cliff" plan this time.

[Josephus]

So Toronto, and Peel, a region west of it, will be under an almost complete lockdown beginning Monday, for 28 days. Malls will be closed for the large part leading up to Christmas. Not good.

Out here, where I am, east of Toronto, we got moved into what they call a Red Zone, one stop below lockdown. What you can do and can't is confusing. I do know strip clubs are closed.